#baltiysk

[torilain285]

🇷🇺: скетчи с Кранц и Пиллау

🇬🇧: Sketches with Kranz and Pillau

[sturgeonposting]

the city of baltiysk, kaliningrad oblast, russia has a sturgeon in a crown on both the flag and the coat of arms. thought you'd like to know

Do you understand that my two special interests are sturgeon and vexillology

Do you understand what tbjs means to me

to me sturgeonposting

I died because of this (good thing)

[mariacallous]

On May 21, the Russian Defense Ministry published a draft decree that, if approved, would unilaterally change its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland. Then, on Tuesday, multiple Russian state media outlets reported that, according to a “military-diplomatic source,” the authorities were never planning to alter the boundary. By Wednesday afternoon, the document had disappeared from the Russian government’s website. Meduza explains how the episode unfolded and how Russia’s neighbors on the Baltic responded.

Russia’s Defense Ministry published a draft decree on Tuesday that would unilaterally change its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea. The document appeared on the Russian government’s online legal portal, though it has since been deleted.

The draft decree’s description notes that the current points marking the width of Russia’s territorial waters were established in 1985 and argues that they need to be changed because they “do not fully correspond to the modern geographical situation” and were determined using “small-scale marine navigation maps,” among other reasons.

The agency proposes extending Russia’s maritime border further into the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and around the towns of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk. According to the document, this would allow the “corresponding water area to be used as internal waters of the Russian Federation.”

“State maritime navigation charts of the appropriate scales will be revised and reissued for the purpose of ensuring navigational safety,” the draft continues.

Lithuania’s foreign ministry called the proposal “a deliberate, targeted, escalatory provocation to intimidate neighboring countries and their societies” in a statement to Politico, saying it is “further proof that Russia’s aggressive and revisionist policy is a threat to the security of neighboring countries and Europe as a whole.” The agency said it planned to summon a Russian official “for a full explanation.”

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen pointed out that maritime border alterations are regulated by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which Russia is a party. “It’s worth noting that creating confusion is also an element of hybrid influence. Finland is not surprised by this development,” Valtonen said. She later added that Finland does not see the proposal as a provocation.

Meanwhile, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that the country’s authorities were aware of Russian media reports about the proposed maritime border change. “The government is closely monitoring the situation. Russia has not contacted Finland about this issue. We will proceed as always: judiciously and relying on facts,” he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, multiple Russian state media outlets published reports saying the country is not planning to move its border in the Baltic, citing a “military-diplomatic source.”

“There were not and are not any intentions to alter the width of [Russia’s] territorial waters, its economic zone, the continental shelf along the mainland coast, or the state border line of the Russian Federation in the Baltic,” the source reportedly said.

By Wednesday afternoon, the document had disappeared from the Russian government’s website, though an archived copy of its official description is still accessible.

Jyri Lavikainen, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told the Finnish news agency Yle that “under normal circumstances, Russia would not engage in the unilateral revision of territorial borders and let us learn about it from their defense ministry’s website.” He continued: “Even if it is a minor issue, Russia is trying to create problems. It’s trying to make Western countries feel that the current political situation is unacceptable, and they should therefore enter negotiations with Russia on terms that are favorable to it.”

[beardedmrbean]

The Kremlin has reacted furiously after a Polish government body advised using a different name for Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea coast.

The Polish committee said the city and wider area should instead be called Królewiec.

This was the area's traditional name, it said, and the decision no longer to use an "imposed name" was partly a result of Russia invading Ukraine.

Russia said the decision was "bordering on madness" and "a hostile act".

"We know that throughout history, Poland has slipped from time to time into this madness of hatred towards Russians," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

For hundreds of years before World War Two, the area was known as Königsberg and was part of East Prussia. Królewiec is the Polish translation of Königsberg.

However, after World War Two, the city and wider region were placed under Soviet administration. The Soviets renamed it Kaliningrad after Mikhail Kalinin, one of the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Kaliningrad became part of the territory of Russia, making it an exclave - an area that is geographically separated from a country's main territory - located between Poland and Lithuania.

Kaliningrad is strategically important to Moscow because it houses the Russian Baltic Fleet at the port of Baltiysk and is one of Russia's only ice-free European ports.

On Tuesday, Poland's Committee on Standardisation of Geographical Names Outside the Republic of Poland said it was recommending with immediate effect that the city be known in Poland as Królewiec and the exclave's wider area as Obwód Królewiecki.

It said the name Kaliningrad was unrelated to either the city or the region and had an "emotional and negative" resonance in Poland.

Mikhail Kalinin was one of six Soviet Politburo signatories to the order to execute more than 21,000 Polish prisoners of war in the forests of Katyn and elsewhere in 1940.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its propaganda efforts had prompted Poland to re-evaluate controversial "imposed names", the committee added.

"Each country has the right to use in its language traditional names constituting its cultural heritage, but it cannot be forced to use names unacceptable by it in its language," the committee said.

Moscow initially blamed the Nazis for the Katyn Massacre when the Germans discovered the mass graves in 1943.

Because Moscow imposed a communist regime on Poland after World War Two, the relatives of the victims were unable to publicly discuss or find anything out about the crime for five decades. Russia only acknowledged its responsibility for the massacre in 1990.

Although the state committee's recommendation is not binding, it is expected that Polish state bodies will now refer to Kaliningrad as Królewiec. Poland's foreign ministry has issued a positive assessment of the name change.

Poland has also begun to fortify its border with the exclave following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Polish military has erected a temporary 2.5m-high razor wire fence and last month began work to install cameras and motion sensors along the 232-km border. Anti-tank obstacles have also been positioned at border crossings.

Polish officials are concerned that Russia could use that border as a new migrant route into the EU, following reports of increased direct flights from the Middle East and elsewhere to Kaliningrad.

Poland has erected a 5.5m-high steel fence along part of its border with Belarus after an increase in migrants crossing into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia from there.

[mokhosz-nafo]

Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) reported a successful operation that left the Russian Baltic Fleet minesweeper "Aleksandr Obukhov" in need of long-term repairs. The ship, stationed in Baltiysk, was preparing for combat duty when a mysterious hole appeared in its gas pipe, allowing water to enter the engine. As a result, the minesweeper is now undergoing major repairs.

The damaged M-503 engine, essential for the vessel's operation, is difficult to source and expensive to repair, complicating the restoration process for the Russian fleet.

[lmky-n]

tomorow i'll be off in Baltiysk to meet my mom and younger sisters

[szonikuscsavarhuzo]

Russian authorities have made a unilateral decision to change the sea borders of Russia with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea. This follows from the draft government resolution published on the portal of legal acts of the Russian Federation. According to the document drafted by the Russian defense ministry, Russia intends to declare part of the water area in the east of the Gulf of Finland, as well as near the cities of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region as its internal sea waters. To do that, geographic coordinates of the points that determine the position of the baselines from which the width of the territorial sea of ​​the Russian Federation is measured, as well as the adjacent zone off the coast and islands will be changed. 🔹At the border with Finland, Russian government intends to correct the coordinates in the area of ​​the islands of Yahi, Sommers, Holland, Rodsher, Maly Tyuters, Vigrund, as well as near the northern entrance cape of the Narva River, follows from the appendix to the Cabinet of Ministers. 🔹On the border with Lithuania, the area of ​​the Curonian Spit in the Gulf of Gdansk, the areas of Cape Taran, the cape south of Cape Taran, as well as the Baltic Spit came under review. The current geographical coordinates established by the USSR Council of Ministers in 1985 “do not fully correspond to the modern geographical situation,” the authors of the project claim. The points were recorded “using small-scale maritime navigation charts,” which, in turn, were based on works from the mid-20th century, and this “does not allow us to determine the external boundary of the internal sea waters” of the Russian Federation, the document says. As a result of the changes, “a previously absent system of straight baselines will be established on the southern part of the Russian islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, as well as in the area of ​​Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk, allowing the corresponding water areas to be used as internal sea waters of the Russian Federation; The passage of the State border of the Russian Federation at sea will change due to a change in the position of the external border of the territorial sea,” the authors of the project explained.

Múlt héten beszélgettem egy Fideszessel, aki bőszen bizonygatta, hogy ha végez Ukrajnával tuti nem fog továbbmenni.

Kibaszott kretének

[andrewtheprophet]

Russia Broadens Her Nuclear Horn: Daniel 7

Russia to equip new nuclear submarines with Zircon hypersonic missiles Yasen-class submarines are nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines, built to replace Soviet-era nuclear attack submarines. By REUTERS Published: AUGUST 14, 2023 The Russian corvette Aleksin fires missiles during a parade marking Navy Day in Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad region, Russia July 31, 2022 (Illustrative). (photo…

[voninsterburg]

[torilain285]

🇷🇺: Я нарисовала Пиллау или же Балтийск :)

Программа для рисования: HiPaint

🇬🇧: I drew Pillau (Baltiysk) :)

Drawing program: HiPaint

[serenevelocity]

Baltiysk

July 2020

[mariacallous]

The Russian Baltic Fleet minesweeper Alexander Obukhov was put out of action thanks to a sabotage operation by Ukraine's military intelligence, the agency said on Oct. 7.

The ship, based in the Russian coastal town of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad exclave, reportedly "suffered severe damage" after water leaked into the engine due to "the mysterious appearance of a hole in a gas duct."

This is the second case of Ukraine sabotaging a Russian warship in the exclave, which lies between Poland and Lithuania some 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Ukraine's northwestern border.

The vessel that was supposed to be sent on duty is now undergoing major repairs, as the damaged M-503 engine is a rare piece of equipment, the agency noted. Efforts to fix the vessel are likely to be "technically difficult and expensive," according to HUR.

The agency published a video supposedly from inside the Russian vessel, where an unidentified person shows and describes the aftermath of the sabotage, putting the date as Sept. 30.

HUR did not specify how it gained access to the vessel to carry out the sabotage.

In another incident on April 8, the Russian missile ship Serpukhov was set on fire while docked off the Kaliningrad exclave.

Ukraine later revealed that a then-active member of the Russian Armed Forces assisted with the sabotage operation.

Kyiv's forces also managed to disable roughly one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet with drone and missile attacks, undermining Russia's naval dominance in the sea.

[beardedmrbean]

Russia's Baltic Fleet no longer has the ability to launch large-scale amphibious operations, according to a new report.

The findings are based on analysis of recent drills—dubbed Ocean Shield 2023—conducted by the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea, according to a report from Rochan Consulting. The firm specializes in open source intelligence, conflict reporting and analysis, the global defense market, and national security, and currently focuses on monitoring military operations in Ukraine.

Russia's Baltic Fleet began its Ocean Shield 2023 naval exercises in August under the command of Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it involved more than 30 military vessels and boats, 20 support vessels, 30 aircraft, and some 6,000 military personnel.

The exercise took place at the same time as NATO was holding its own Baltic Sea drills.

Rochan Consulting noted that the exercise came at a time when the relationship between Russia and NATO member states was at its lowest. At the same time, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has negatively impacted its armed forces, including the Russian Navy.

"The Baltic Fleet, in particular, has had its capacities degraded," the report said, noting that three of its large landing ships had been deployed to the Black Sea prior to the war, and because of the closure of the Bosphorus Strait to military traffic, they have not been able to return to their home port of Baltiysk.

"Likewise, the Baltic Fleet's 336th Naval Infantry Brigade suffered significant losses in the war, significantly degrading the fleet's capacity for power projection," it said.

The consulting firm assessed that the Ocean Shield 2023 military drills "attempted to showcase to NATO that Russia could still project its power across the Baltic Fleet and damage NATO's potential in the region."

Russia's Defense Ministry said in August that the drills were designed to test "the navy's readiness to protect the national interests of the Russian Federation in an operationally important area" and would involve forces practicing how to "protect sea lanes, transport troops and military cargo, as well as defend the coastline."

But the exercises only confirmed that the Baltic Fleet has lost its ability to conduct a large-scale offensive amphibious operation "due to the involvement of its Ropucha-class landing ships and the 336th Naval Infantry Brigade in the war in Ukraine," the report said.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.

[mokhosz-nafo]

🧐 "Russia wants to change maritime borders with 🇱🇹Lithuania and 🇫🇮Finland unilaterally", - Moscow Times

❗️Russian Ministry of Defence has prepared a document according to which Russia intends to declare part of the water area in the east of the Gulf of Finland as its internal sea waters, as well as near the cities of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region.

[nepunktualnaya]

the mystery of these places.

[kappa-sama]

swans on parade. Day of the Russian Navy))